The present invention generally relates to a measuring apparatus, and more particularly, to a hemolysis reaction measuring device for measuring osmotic pressure resistance of erythrocytes, i.e., red blood corpuscles or red blood cells.
A known conventional hemolysis reaction measuring device is disclosed, for example, in Japanese Utility Model Publication (Jikkosho) No. 54-13832.
The known measuring device is provided with a hemolysis reacting means which comprises a transparent flexible tube wound around a similarly transparent round rod. After brine or salt water is charged into the tube to provide a concentration gradient, blood is poured thereinto from a high concentration portion. Subsequently opposite ends of the tube are closed, and by causing said tube to revolve and rotate, the red blood cells are slowly moved toward a low osmotic pressure portion. Thus, to employ a phenomenon in which the moving red blood cells are soon subject to hemolysis at a point of certain osmotic pressure to form a red hemolysis zone within the tube, a light source is provided so as to be able to project light toward a side portion of said tube, with the tube being adapted to be displaced along a center axis thereof, to thereby record the pattern of light absorbance within the tube, for example, by a scanning type photoelectric recorder.
It is to be noted here that the patterns of the hemolysis zones as referred to above are used for medical examinations of various diseases.
In the conventional hemolysis reaction measuring device as described above, a halogen lamp is employed as the light source for projecting light toward the side portion of the tube.
Accordingly, the amount of heat generation is undesirably relatively large, and a fan is required for cooling purposes, thus contributing to a relatively large and complicated structure of the measuring device.
Moreover, due to the fact that the halogen lamp contains light having various wavelengths, the measurement of the light absorbance can not be effected if the light thereof is projected as it is, and therefore, it is necessary to project light onto the tube through a filter which permits only light having a specific wavelength to pass therethrough. Such a filter undesirably contributes to the cost of the device.
Furthermore, other problems are presented in that light from the halogen lamp has a high degree of noise, with an unstable light intensity, which causes a reduction in the measuring accuracy, while the life of the halogen lamp is rather short.